Create the right first impression, establish rapport with the interviewer, and the rest may be straightforward.

You have all the qualifications and work experiences that the new job asks for. You are more enthusiastic, responsible and capable than charity fundraisers. You don’t smoke or swear or cheat on your girlfriend and past employers. What more can a job interviewer want?

Yet after the first interview session, there’s complete silence from the company until you finally call and they tell you the job has already been filled.

What went wrong for you?

Or rather, what went wrong for me? Late last year, I applied for an editor post at a magazine publishing company based in Beach Road area. I have been an editor of a similar magazine years ago and by coincidence, the local manager handling the recruitment said he was familiar and impressed with my work.

I sat for a written test and was confident of the answers I gave. The manager even gave me a $10 Starbucks voucher for the trouble and time I put into the interview and test.

He called me a few days later to say his big boss from the overseas parent company was in town and would like to interview me and the other candidates. I thought the final interview was a formality and felt confident the job was mine. The big boss was a Caucasian. We chatted and joked as he explained the job scope.

However, when I was walking out of the office I saw a smartly-dressed, young Caucasian girl walking in. I recognised her as a journalist whom I met occasionally in press conferences. There and then I knew instinctively I won’t get the job. I did not hear from the company since.

Many of you may have similar experiences. Your application and interviews somehow progress so well that you become uneasy – fate cannot be so kind!

I used to help run a personnel department (the old name for HR), hiring factory workers, technicians, forklift drivers and others. From my own experience and what other HR managers have told me, here’s the lowdown on the REAL hiring process:

Firstly, the manager who interviews you is usually not the one to decide who to hire and who to reject. The HR manager consults with the head of department who will be supervising the new employee, and finally there’s the general manager or vice-president who gives the official approval to employ a particular candidate.

The interviewer evaluates your work experience, job knowledge and perceived work attitude against those required for the new job. In theory, if your ability, skills and experience match the job requirements better than any other candidate, you get the job.

But by now you would have realised that life is not logical or neat. When two human beings come together – you the applicant, and he the job interviewer – subjective things like feelings of instant liking or intangible dislikes will influence the decision.

First up : positive impression. When the interviewer takes an immediate dislike in your appearance and the way you talk and move, that’s the end of the story. He simply refuses to consider you.

Usually the interviewer will be open-minded and fair the first time he sees you. Your friendly manners, neat grooming and a business-like confidence will go a long way to help you produce the right first impression.

Next, is your work experience. Academic and professional qualifications are important but not as important as experience.

Life is unfair, especially to first-timers. One tourism graduate (from the University of Adelaide) told me no one in the tourism trade in Singapore wanted to hire him because he had no work experience. But if he didn’t get a job, how is he going to acquire experience in the first place?

Third, your relevant qualifications that are specific to the job. If the job calls for a person who can also translate Chinese text into English, but you are effectively monolingual in English, you are out, no matter how much rapport you have established with the interviewer.

Fourth, your track record. Now, this is different from work experience. You may have extensive experience in web programming, but if your employment history shows that you have never completed any project before you moved on to another position, it is likely that you won’t complete any project with the new employer.

Another unfavourable perspective in your track record would be the fact that you have worked for many years without a promotion or job advancement. Maybe your present company has too many senior people squatting on their positions so there is no room to move up. But even if you tell that to the interviewer, he may still think you’re making up a story to explain your job immobility.

What can I say – life is unfair.

On the other hand, no one likes job hoppers – workers who have never spent more than a year in one place. Think of it this way: If you were the boss, you won’t want to pay good money to hire someone, train him to be familiar with the work, and just when he becomes productive and can contribute to your company, he goes away.

If you have been changing three to four jobs in the past three to four years, you should tell the interviewer that these different jobs have given you a broad knowledge of the industry, and now you want to make a long lasting contribution to your prospective employer.

Fifth and finally is your attitude. Attitude should rank first when assessing whether an applicant is likely to be an enthusiastic, cheerful, committed employee.

Without the right attitude, the work experience, qualifications and job competence of the individual will not be utilised by him to benefit the company. Worst, a new employee with bad work attitude can slowly but surely subvert the productive culture of the organisation in destructive ways – badmouthing colleagues, spreading rumours, not putting in his fair share of labour, encouraging others to hold back their fair share of labour, and generally being a nuisance, yet smart enough not to do something drastic that leads to his dismissal.

The lack of experience and insufficient qualification can easily be remedied by training, coaching and mentoring as long as the new employee brings along an enthusiastic, unselfish and responsible attitude to his work and to the company.

In summary, remember: create the right impression first. Nothing else matters if you can’t do that.

The above article has been reproduced with permission from MyeCitizen (http://www.myecitizen.sg), a one-stop lifestyle portal featuring personalised eService offerings from the government and the private sector.

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